Post navigation

Gritty Or Not Gritty, You Pick

Did you know that one of the leading causes for dental problems for thousands of years was the bread people ate? Yeah. The bread. You see, when you grind your grain with a quern-stone and handstone, you inevitably end up mixing a little bit of rock with your flour. Yummy rock. Eventually it wears your teeth down to little painful nubs. A lot of the mummies found in Egypt have bad teeth.

Grit.

There is an obvious quality (?) to much of the literature available through national markets. Much of it has grit. I have read in several locations that some national publishers have been known to request even more grit from their authors. If a story doesn’t have enough, the author is requested to add more. I suppose that could simply be urban legend. But seeing evidences of it in several places makes me think it really happens. A lot.

I understand why some publishers and authors do so. That’s what seems to sell. When a populous is bombarded with violence and profanity and sexuality on every media front, I suppose people become accustomed to it. And like having a sweet-tooth, they begin to crave it.

But I wonder . . . do you think there will come a time when a majority of people will get tired of the grit in their mind? That they will desire a well written, clean read, just for the enjoyment of something without the grit? Perhaps that group is already the majority and the marketing machines are simply shoving grit down our throats. But somehow I doubt that, because it keeps selling.

I firmly believe that a writer needs to stay true to the story they are writing. And I don’t believe in burning books. People need to have the freedom to write what they want, just as readers need to be able to read what they want. Just so you know where I stand on the pedophile book scandal on Amazon . . . if it was my bookstore, I wouldn’t carry it. Period. But I wouldn’t prevent the pervert from writing the book and handing it out to all his friends, if he has any left. That book is definitely on the far end of the sick and twisted scale.

There are other books, far less controversial, which I still have no desire to read. I made the mistake of opening one about a year ago in an airport bookstore. I like architecture. It had a great architectural design on the cover. I considered buying it. I thumbed through the pages and fell upon a scene which burned my eyes out. Yikes. I put the book back.

I wonder. I wonder if there is a coming tide of clean reads simply because people get tired of the grit. I am tired of it. Let me put a plug out there for a new website I am very excited about. I hope their little business booms. Squeaky Clean Reads. Check it out.

Here’s my poem about grit, the sandy kind.
A camel in the heat,
Can go without water for days.
He’s a wilderness athlete,
Ignoring the hot sun’s rays.
But he worries about his teeth,
Because of the grit in his lunch.
His sandwiches really have sand,
And a very unpleasant crunch.